A.F. Blakemore & Son Limited selects Visma Retail as provider of an end-to-end retail IT solution

A.F. Blakemore & Son Limited has chosen Visma Retail to modernise its technology, bringing innovative IT solutions to help grow and develop a sustainable business for the long-term. The company owns and operates 295 SPAR stores and is a wholesaler to an additional 780 SPAR partner stores across England and Wales.

- Visma Retail was one of very few organisations able to provide “a true end-to-end product” to serve Blakemore’s needs. Our three key criteria in finding a partner were an end to end solution, a supplier willing to embrace innovation, and with the commitment and financial capability to continually invest in their product. Visma Retail met all of these criteria, says Robert Geere, Chief Information Officer of A.F. Blakemore & Son Limited.

Solutions embracing the fast development of digital retail Visma Retail is to provide “Visma Retail Suite” that covers HQ and central processes, store back office and a point-of-sales platform. This includes in-store technology such as self-scanning, self check-out, POS enabled on mobile devices) and in-store management (such as backoffice enabled on mobile devices, real time reporting, task and workflow management).

- Visma is a supplier showing innovation and, importantly, one that is talking grocery and convenience. If you consider the experience you would expect from the convenience store of the future, it will be very much mobile-based and feature a wide range of technology-based innovations such as low-cost effective self-checkouts. We wanted to put a product in that would support that, in effect creating the foundation to enable speedy adoption of digital solutions, says Mr Geere.

- Technology is developing at an exponential rate, which requires retailers to be more agile than ever before. The time span from identifying a trend or new consumer behaviour to taking action has shortened, which is why Visma provides solutions for our retailers to act in real-time. We are very proud to be providing our innovative solutions to A.F. Blakemore & Son Limited, says Sven Arnquist, VP International Sales, Visma Retail.

About A.F. Blakemore & Son LtdA.F. Blakemore & Son Ltd was founded in 1917 and is a family-owned food & drink retail, wholesale and distribution business, based at Longacres Industrial Estate in Willenhall, West Midlands. Peter Blakemore is the third generation of the Blakemore family to lead the company, which currently employs more than 8,100 people and has a turnover circa £1.31 billion.

About Visma RetailVisma Retail helps retailers to successfully attract customers to their marketplaces, increase sales through enhanced shopping experience and create loyal customers. This by clever use of technology supporting all the necessary processes at all levels. Visma Retail offer complete front- and back office solutions to your business with a wide variety of services. This includes for example: point of sale applications, retail ERP, central systems for controlling and monitoring stores, warehouse management system, e-commerce, loyalty system, and services such as project management, implementation, support, technical services and IT operations.

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